weekly menu

remember when i was so faithful to blog everyday?   remember the good ol' days when i would post my weekly menus on mondays for y'all to read?  yeah...me either. 

this week's menu:

monday: gnocchi with zucchini ribbon, parsley and brown butter  served with trader joe's mix of colorful broccoli and cauliflower!

since i can never follow directions well, even in a recipe, i mixed things up.  after boiling the gnocchi, i sauteed them in a bit of olive oil so they would have a little crunch on the outside.  i highly recommend that method.  instead of butter i did olive oil and substituted shallots for garlic....and tried parsley instead of fresh.  other than that i followed the recipe.  even though it sounds weird i did add the nutmeg and will add it every time.  nutmeg where have you been hiding, you are delish in savory dishes!  may i also say that i love the little squish of flavor that cherry tomatoes add to recipes.  thank you for letting me get that out...i feel better. 

so every week we try and buy one new food to try.  sometimes it is a number 1 hit and other times it's as bad as clay aiken making his 5th album.  gnocchi was our new food last week, we are still trying to pronounce it but as ludacris says, "call up jazze tell him to pop up the bottles cuz we got another hit, hit, hit".   it is some delish stuff.  my favorite is trader joe's whole wheat gnocchi.  it's a bit healthier and just as tasty as regular gnocchi.  the first gnocchi recipe that i made was last week.  it's hard to pick a favorite between the two.  you can find the recipe for the gnocchi dish pictured below here .  give it a whirl, i think you will even like the chard!

tuesday: corn-meal crusted chicken nuggets served with fresh veggies

i made the sauce (included in the recipe) with raspberries instead of blackberries


wednesday:  chicken and broccoli alfredo pizza.   we had this pizza on our honeymoon and went back a few times during our trip to have more!  i have been wanting to re-create this delish pizza at home.  to make it  healthier i am using whole wheat crust and this recipe  for the sauce.

thursday: stir fry

friday: well let's just say we will cross that bridge when we get there.


what new foods have you tried lately?

playing catch-up

life always seems to be busy, usually in a wonderful way.  lately, we have had so many lovely things going on that i haven't been able to blog as much or to keep up.  this week is my attempt to catch you up!  let's start with the month of march.  you will remember (or perhaps you don't remember because it has been so long) that it was my mom's birthday.  to celebrate we went to the st. jame's tea room.   tea at st. jame's takes several hours which allowed us several hours to chat and laugh...and feel very sophisticated while time.  if you have never been, you would be daft as a brush not to go!  in fact, go in honor of the royal wedding.  the experience will having you drinking more tea and saying words like simply and lovely more often. 


the lovely birthday lady in all her glory





savory delights





cream teas





dessert was simply divine





cheers!



weekly prayer pic

i haven't ever posted one long blog entry about our wedding just snippets here and there.  here is another little bit for you.  for our wedding we decided that a guestbook was a waste of paper and that we wouldn't look through it more than once in our lives.  and don't you hate when you sign a card for a wedding and then you have to write another message in a guest book or on a picture frame?  anyone else feel that way?  no?  just me?   i am a grump.  so...anyway we decided to rent a photo booth to capture our guests but then as we looked at our budget we decided to toss it out.  my mom surprised us and hired a photo booth.  isn't she a sweet lady?  we didn't know what a huge success it would be!  we rented it during our family reception.  we had one large reception for the guests and another reception that followed for our close family and bridal party.  instead of twiddling their thumbs while we took pictures, guests sipped on lavender limeade and wore the photo booth out!  how posh and fun, right?  each time people took pictures, they got a strip of their photos and so did we.  one for me and one for my homies type of deal. 

the rental company offered to put them in a pretty album but i had a better idea.  i placed all the photo strips into a pretty glass vase.  this way we (or guests) can look through the photos and remember our fun day.  i love having picture out on display so they don't gather dust in a dark closet somewhere...although i have that going on too.

each week, we draw a photo strip and focus on praying for the people in the photo.  we just started it this week and we drew...

my cousin gary and his sweet wife kristin.  don't worry they didn't come dressed as a pirate and viking to the wedding, the photo booth came with props.  although with my family you could never be too sure, i wouldn't put it past them.  my favorite picture is the bottom one. 

not only is it great to think of family and friends more often and ways that we can pray for them but it is also fun for the hubs and i to talk about memories we have with family.

stay tuned...you could be next!

i love my husband and his hair

my husband's hair has a life of it's own.  we get more compliments about his hair than mine...really i didn't know i was going to have to compete.  our good friend, quinn, actually describes us to people that don't know us by our hair.  here is what quinn says,"she has red hair and he has big hair".  a few weeks ago, a little boy at church asked john how he got his hair to make such big spikes.  he answered, "carrots because they are spiky too".  it just made my nutritionist heart melt.

here are a few of my favorite pics....i am really blogging about my husband's hair? 



growing his hair out for his part in the church's play as john the baptist lock's of love.



when i look at this picture i get beiber fever so bad i get beiber blisters!



wall of spikes. 





i don't know what to call this one.  beiber with a flip?






sometimes we even have to crack the sunroof to give his hair some space

   

i think my love might look like the dancing grandpa on the geico commericals when we are old.

i love my husband and his hair.  i pray i get to love him until he is old, gray and still spiky.  i can't imagine him any other way.


speaking of hair what is the worst hair style you ever rocked?  i know for myself it was the wave of bangs in the early 90's.  that was an era of bad fashion and hair styles.

dusk

i love the skies of new mexico.  do you spy the moon?

restoring marriages

marriage is the best and hardest thing i have done to date (except for resisting dessert on a very rare and painful occasion).  hard mostly because i am sinful and marriage brings that to the forefront of my mind constantly (as in all the stinkin' time).  sigh, and the Lord has given me such an incredible man to honor and love and yet it is still a process of being continually refined.  our pastor has been preaching thorough the book of colossians lately and last week the message was about restoring marriages.  even though i have a very happy (newlywed) marriage i find that we are continually renewing and restoring our bond.  the message was so encouraging and gave us both much to think about.  take a listen to the message here. 

last night, our community group further discussed the message.  we split up in to women and men to discuss the unique roles that each partner has in the relationship.  the women focused on submission and respect while the men discussed loving and being gentle with their wives (and somehow the topic of dinosaurs came up.  boys can get distracted and are still little boys at heart i guess).

 i found myself thinking, "what does it practical look like to submit to my husband?"  the Lord is so good in His timing.  today when i was checking in with one of my favorite blogs that's exactly what the post was about.  you can read carolyn mahaney's response to that very question here.  last night as the ladies were talking, we were discussing that to the world the idea of submission is not only unpopular but considered to not be in line with women's rights.  i think this type of thinking is rooted in a wrong understanding of what submission.  instead of trying to formulate my own words on the subject i think i will let john piper and the pastoral intern at my church speak on the matter here.

happy thursday.  it's almost friday!  what plans do you have?

misleading

dear fiber one,

your cereal is delicious. my husband and i love to nosh on your crispy and slightly sweet flakes. your name is misleading though. we think fiber-a-ton is more accurate.


thanks so much,

coco plum

p.s. a warning label wouldn't be too much.

weekend at the vet and weekly menu

the weekend started out quite lovely.   i started saturday morning off right with cookbook club, we had a brunch.  i made myra's bagels.  i now appreciate bagels in a whole new way.  i agree with the name einstein's for a bagel shop because folks that can make good bagels are geniuses!  

after cookbook club (brunch edition), i headed home and our saturday took a turn for the worse.  miss addie started whining and pacing.  not terribly unusual.  then she started crying and pacing.  i knew it was bad when i picked her up and she tried to bite me.  that's not like our sweet girl...ok she's not terribly sweet more like 87% cacao chocolate...ok really more like bittersweet but still she doesn't bite.  after several hours of this, the locksmith and i loaded her up and took her to the emergency vet.  now, this emergency vet department probably has better equipment than most human hospitals.  they even have acupuncture...i mean really?  my mom calls it the mayo clinic for animals.  anyway, they took her back for x-rays and they weren't quite sure what the problem was but it looked like an intestinal blockage.  the options?  exploratory surgery.  (um no, the new world has been discovered, you won't find any new territory in addie's belly).  barium swallow (check no), or ultrasound (sorry no.  this is a vet clinic and not a human hospital right).  all the options were pretty invasive and pricey.  we opted for one night's hospital stay not knowing what the outcome would be.  the locksmith and i left our little girl and our hearts at the clinic that night.  the worst part?  going home to bella.  no one was sadder than bella. 



she still slept only on her half of the bed.


we returned to the vet sunday afternoon to this sad sight...

the vet said that addie's vitals were normal but would not eat and didn't get much rest, we feared it was worse not better.  when we saw her though, she was her usual self.  she ate for us and was even playful and it appeared things were moving through her stomach.  so we decided to take her home. 



all that remains is a yellow bandage and shaved paw. 


she appears to do a little better each day.  we still don't know exactly what happened but she had a follow-up appointment yesterday and everything appears to be ok.  the best part?

ying and yang are back together.  reunited and it feels so good!  

so here is our weekly menu.  except the pizza all the recipes are from a new cookbook that i will talk about soon...

sunday: coconut flapjacks

monday: lemony zucchini risotto with egg

tuesday: hoppin' john

wednesday:  eggplant and scallions with miso rice

thursday: breadcrumb coated broccoli rabe and pasta

friday: homemade pizza

saturday:  roasted bell pepper pesto and pasta

lemony zucchini risotto with egg